Residents' lawsuit claims Taunton dam unsafe

Claiming that the cofferdam at Lake Sabbatia was built without proper licensing, permitting or supervision, a group of five private citizens is suing the city of Taunton and several other entities.

Gerry Tuoti

Claiming that the cofferdam at Lake Sabbatia was built without proper licensing, permitting or supervision, a group of five private citizens is suing the city of Taunton and several other entities.

Attorney Frank Biedak, who filed the lawsuit last week, claims the dam had a devastating impact on wildlife in the Mill River and poses a threat to public safety.
“This is exactly what we dealt with in 2005, and now we’ve created it again,” Biedak said, referring to the October 2005 Whittenton dam crisis.

City Solicitor Steven A. Torres said he thinks the lawsuit will be dismissed.

“The city and the Conservation Commission acted properly and within their discretion,” he said.

Listed as defendants in the lawsuit are the city; the Conservation Commission; the state Department of Environmental Protection; Gerry O’Bara, president of Help Save the Lake, the volunteer group that built the cofferdam; Jefferson Development Partners, the company that owns the Morey’s Bridge dam and is responsible for the cofferdam; and Renwick Chapman, an engineer and member of Help Save the Lake and the Conservation Commission.

Biedak is seeking a court injunction to order the defendants to immediately make the cofferdam and Morey’s Bridge dam safe. The lawsuit also seeks a total of $5 million in damages, including money to go into a court-controlled trust fund that would be used for restorations to the Mill River.

“This isn’t a get rich quick scheme,” Biedak said. “It’s trying to get people to do the right thing. I really believe some entity needs to pay reparations for the damage done to the wildlife.”

The plaintiffs in the case are Russell Morris and Albina DeSousa, who live on Lake Sabbatia, and Biedak’s brothers and sister-in-law, James Biedak, John Biedak and Robin Biedak. The attorney and his relatives live along the Mill River.

The controversy began this past summer, when the state ordered the gates to be open on Morey’s Bridge dam, which runs across the Mill River, just downstream from where the waterway emerges from the lake. State officials ordered the gates open because they were concerned that pressure on the ailing dam could further weaken the structure. The water levels in Lake Sabbatia soon dropped, prompting some residents to form Help Save the Lake, a group that built a temporary cofferdam just upstream from Morey’s Bridge. The cofferdam, which Biedak says was constructed hastily and unsafely, helped raise the water level in the lake, but caused a the level of the Mill River to fall significantly.

“If you walked down to the Mill River afterward, it was basically dry where there used to be water,” the attorney said.

Biedak said this had a devastating effect on the wildlife, killing many endangered mussels.

“That dam was ultimately built with no approval whatsoever,” Biedak said. “It was an illegally built dam.”

Biedak said Renwick Chapman, a licensed engineer and member of Help Save the Lake, supervised the construction of the cofferdam, which was built in a single day in July. But Chapman said he merely helped build the dam, and didn’t supervise the work or act as an engineer for the project.

“I don’t really understand why my name was put in there,” he said, referring to the list of defendants.

Chapman, who was appointed to the Conservation Commission months after the cofferdam was built, denied any conflict of interest. He said he always excuses himself from voting on any issues pertaining to the lake or dam, a statement Biedak disputes.
David Murphy, president of Jefferson Development Partners, also said that he committed no wrongdoing in handling the dam situation.

The 12-count legal complaint states that the Conservation Commission declared an “emergency” because of drying wells along the lake, but Biedak said there are no records that there was such an emergency.

“Nothing indicates there was an emergency,” Biedak said. “It looks like they just found a way to work around the safeguards of the Wetlands Protection Act.”

The Emergency exceptions to the Wetlands Protection Act would mandate that an on-site inspection of the wells be completed prior to any such declaration. The emergency exceptions also mandate that only the minimal amount of work necessary to abate the emergency occur. Biedak said the city didn’t have enough information to determine the minimum amount of work and built the dam higher than was necessary.

According to exhibits included in the complaint, the dam’s base leaks because at least one block was set on crushed stone. Also, the rubber membrane covering the dam was not installed according to the manufacturer's specifications.

Biedak also produced documents from PARE Corporation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc., raising issues with the cofferdam. Days after the construction of the cofferdam, an engineer stated that the riprap used to solidify the structure was too small and could become dislodged, causing the Morey’s Bridge dam’s gate house to cave in.

“No one has ever been able to certify this thing as safe,” Biedak said.

A Fall River Superior Court judge was scheduled to hear Biedak’s motion for an affirmative injunction Wednesday.

Torres questioned why Biedak sent out a press release when he filed the lawsuit.

“Lake Sabbatia is a difficult situation for a lot of people,” he said. “It shouldn’t be treated as a media circus.”